Invention and application of antibiotics play a crucial role in protecting the health and life of human. However, overuse of antibiotics causes antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which threats to the human health, domestic animals, aquaculture and environment. According to the statistics of Ministry of Health, approximate eighty thousands of people directly or indirectly died of antibiotics abuse annually in China. And the losses causing by health-harming and generation of antibiotic resistant bacteria are uncountable. The antibiotic resistant bacteria isolated some clinical in China are on the top of the world. Antibiotic resistance rate of quinolones arrives at 60-70% though the class of antibiotics are used in China for only twenty years besides penicillins-resistant Streptococcus pneumonia, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, enterococcus and fungal.
In animal husbandry, antibiotics are essential as veterinary medicaments. If veterinary medicaments are not used, the feed number of poultry and livestock required should increase 25% and 89%, respectively. However, wide use and even abuse of veterinary medicaments, especially subclinical dose use for the growth promotion, causes a great death of non-resistant bacteria, and help the antibiotic-resistant bacteria to breed at a prolific rate, which leads to more resistant to antibiotic. In aquaculture, antibiotics are used to control bacterial pathogens. The overuse of antibiotics leads to emerging antibiotic-resistant strains and low quality of aquatic products, which is a seriously threat to aquaculture. Food safety problems with antibiotic residue caused by antibiotic abuse not only reduce export economy, but also increase antibiotic resistant bacteria and make the aquaculture environment worse, which are the direct or indirect threat to ecological environment.
There is a dose-effect relationship between the use of antibiotics and the resistance level of pathogens, i.e. the use of antibiotics within a certain range can change the pathogens antibiotic-resistance level and infection rate of antibiotic resistant bacteria, and then the normal intestinal microflora of human and animal develop resistance to antibiotics, and pollute the environment, water and food by animal feces. So the antibiotic resistant bacteria are increase and the probability to contact with antibiotic resistant bacteria is also increased. Thus, the species of antibiotic resistant bacteria are isolated and identified widely. These antibiotic resistant bacteria cause infectious diseases, which is difficult to be cured since these pathogens are not sensitive to antibiotics. The control of antibiotic resistant bacteria has become a social and scientific issue. In world health day 2011, “Combat with antibiotic resistance: no action today, no medicine tomorrow” was raised by World Health Organization (WHO). Although the development of new antibiotics speeds up with the appearance of antibiotic resistant bacteria, new antibiotic resistant bacteria appear rapidly when the new antibiotics are used. Moreover, the development of a new antibiotic needs a long time. These indicate that strategy on development of new antibiotics may not control the widespread of antibiotic resistant bacteria. These antibiotic resistant bacteria are a great challenge to develop new antibiotics and control the bacterial infectious diseases. Therefore, new methods to inhibit the antibiotic resistant bacteria are very important to control the infections caused by antibiotic resistant pathogens, and to safeguard human health, promote ecological breeding and guarantee food safety. It has been found that plant extracts, traditional Chinese medicine, rinse-free disinfectants are efficient in inhibiting multi antibiotic resistant bacteria in vitro. However, they contain complex components and the specific substances playing the key role are unknown. Recent studies have found that some small molecule metabolites such as glucose and fructose can improve the sensitivity of bacterial persisters gram-negative (Escherichia coli) and gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) to aminoglycosides. The result was specific to this class of antibiotic, and it was further verified in mice. Although bacterial persisters are not the antibiotic resistant bacteria, it is with high tolerance to antibiotics. Besides this report, information regarding to the metabolites or small molecule substances for improving the sensitivity of bacteria to antibiotics is not available so far.